Trauma
by Steve from Minnesota
Summary: Percy awakes in a tent, inside the Hunters of Artemis’ camp, with a thick layer of bandages around his head, and a large hole in his memory. He struggles to come to terms with the fact that his mother and Annabeth had died, and attempts to get through the seizures. And his choices to come. (Short story as a prequel to a PJO Dying Light crossover) (Rated T for minor swearing)
1. Seizing

"He's seizing! Wrap him up!"

"Get her in a bag, we need to make sure we can bury her properly."

"What about him? He'll need gods' know how much ambrosia and nectar."

"We can't worry about that now, just keep him alive until we get back to camp."

"The mistress is going to be pissed, isn't she?"

"Not with him, no."

"He's alright."

Percy shot up, bewildered and sweating.

He was dripping with sweat, and his legs were practically stuck to his sleeping bag.

Sleeping bag?

He didn't remember being in a tent.

In fact, he didn't remember much at all, like a large black hole swallowed up his short term memories.

And by short, he means waking up in his cabin in the middle of summer, walking into his bathroom...

And then waking up, sweat freezing on his skin and right into the bone, in the middle of winter.

The zipper on the tent slowly opened, and Percy jolted towards it.

"Hey fish face, how are you... feeling?" Thalia asked hesitantly.

"Thalia? Where am I?" Percy asked back.

"You were in a bit of a... situation. Don't mess with the bandages, just trust me. I'm sorry." She looked down.

"What... happened?"

"Look man, just get dressed, I'll let Lady Artemis explain." She deflected the question, zipping the tent back up.

Percy fumbled around in the tent, completely oblivious to the bag with a sticky note in the corner labeled "clothes"

He continued his valiant search for articles of clothing in his tent.

"What the Hades is taking you so long? She's getting impatient with you." Thalia called from outside the tent.

"I uh... cant find any... clothes." Percy responded.

"There's a bag of clothes at the foot of

your sleeping bag, dipshit." Thalia was silent for a moment. "Sorry."

"Apology accepted." Percy responded, reaching for the bag and pulling out a pair of jeans and a shirt.

He slipped them on, and walked out of the tent, his feet hitting the cold, wet snow.

"You forgot shoes." Thalia commented bluntly, leaning against a tree.

Percy stooped back into his tent, pulling a pair of shoes on.

"N-no socks." He poked back out of the tent and stood up.

"Huh." Thalia looked at the ground.

"Well... Lady Artemis has something important to... speak to you about."

Percy nodded wearily, walking off towards the largest of the tents in camp.

"Enter, Perseus." Artemis said calmly from inside.

Percy lifted the flap and walked inside. "L-ady Artemis" he bowed.

"Rise, Perseus." He lifted his head, and sat on the floor.

"What do you ha-...have to tell me, Lady Artemis?" Percy asked.

"I'll lay the... basics down on you." Artemis took a shuttered breath in.

"You were out for 9 days, in quite a bad condition. Severe head trauma and suffering from a very, very bad case of hypothermia."

"That would explain the large ga..gap in my mind..."

"What was that, Perseus?"

"Nothing, malady. Please cont-continue."

"Alright." She took in another breath.

"When we found you, you were... clutching Annabeth, and having a very bad seizure."

"Annabeth? Where is she? W-what happened?" Percy started frantically clawing for the tent flap.

"Calm down, Perseus. Let me finish before your head trauma kicks another seizing fit into your gut." Artemis gripped his arm.

Percy just began clawing more rapidly, calling Annabeth's name the entire time.

"Perseus. Calm down child. Calm down." Artemis gently placed her hand over his mouth to quiet him, knowing that if she made any wrong move he'd hurt himself even more.

He began clawing at the bandages around his head, trying to tear them off.

Artemis let out an uncharacteristic shriek and swatted his arms away from his head. Percy crumpled to the floor, shaking violently, and softly weeping.

Thalia shot through the tent flap with a dagger in hand, (not that she wanted to use it on Percy) "Malady, what's-" she looked at Percy on the floor. "O-oh." She mumbled quietly.

"Get him away before he hurts himself. He's not in a good state of mind to talk about it right now."

Thalia picked Percy up by the shoulders and slowly dragged him out of the tent, soothing him the entire way back to his tent.

"M-mmother..." Percy groaned.

"We'll get you back to your mom, Perce. Don't worry."

"Mom..." he sighed, closing his eyes as Thalia tucked him into his sleeping bag and zipped up the tent.

Thalia sat outside for a while, listening to his distressed groans and pleads, before returning to Artemis' tent.

"Has his condition improved?" Artemis asked, as Thalia entered.

"No malady... it's gotten worse, he keeps calling out for his mother. We might have to take him to a hospital." Thalia solemnly responded.

Artemis grunted with frustration. "I'm not letting that dumb kid die in camp, you and me would bother be footstools for Poseidon if that happened. I'll get Apollo, if his condition gets too bad. Get everyone packed up for now, we'll haul him along with us."

"Yes malady. But, if I may ask, what caused his freak out? He seemed quite fine before. Did something trigger it?" Thalia asked, hand lifting the tent flap while she was about to exit.

"He was fine up until I mentioned Annabeth. He'll, well he might, be back on his feet with us eventually. The girls will warm up to him, especially in his current state." Artemis told Thalia, ushering her out.

Artemis sat on the floor in deep thought about the boy. She obviously couldn't just leave the Hero of Olympus to freeze and be pecked away at by wildlife. She watched the tent flap, and watched Thalia walked away. She definitely couldn't leave him.

She also couldn't have a mental breakdown about the decision in front of her lieutenant.

Now would be a good time to do that.

"This isn't good. This is not good. What in the Hades am I able to do?"

Artemis rubbed her temples, continuing to think of an idea.

She stopped, and figured it out.

She watched calmly as Thalia zipped Percy's tent back up, after moderately calming him down. She continued watching as Thalia headed for the fire pit to get everyone ready.

She stood up, ducking under the tent flap and walked towards the small, dinky tent they had Perseus in for the past 9 days.

She unzipped the flap and peered under.

She really felt sorry for the boy. He was shaking, not violently, more of a shiver, with tears streaming down his face. He was nearly completely delirious, and his eyes were closed, clearly asleep. She had never seen someone so helpless in many years.

She carefully approached, putting her hand on his forehead. "Rest." she whispered to him, lifting her hand carefully.

His breathing calmed, and he stopped shaking, he settled into the sleeping bag and stayed contempt.

She let out a short sigh of relief, then zipped his tent back up, walking away.


	2. Allen is kind of a dick

Thalia was having a pretty shitty time dragging Percy around on their way towards Camp Halfblood, which was only about a mile and a half away.

And across a frozen lake.

"How does someone sleep for this long?" A hunter asked her.

"Brain damage." Thalia responded nonchalantly.

"Has he been asleep for 12 days? That's weird." Another girl asked.

"He's only been asleep for about a day and a quarter right now, he's been having real bad fever dreams, we're making sure he doesn't die." Hunter responded.

And that's why they were going to camp. Chiron would know how to care for this stuff a lot better than the hunters, and Apollo's kids would be helpful in some way.

"Wasn't he calling for his mother earlier?" Hunter asked Thalia.

"Y... yes." Thalia answered. "I shouldn't have lied to him." She looked at the thick ice below their feet as they crossed the frozen waters.

"Didn't his mom..." Hunter started, not wanting to finish.

"A tumor, in her chest. She didn't want the gods' help. Yeah." Thalia answered.

Percy continued to groan and drool in his sleeping bag, Thalia pulling the rope connected to the top of it along her side.

"Why does this doof have to be so heavy?" She mumbled to herself.

"Well Allen, I hope you find yourself well suited here in camp." Chiron smiled at 19 year old boy.

"Thank you sir. It's quite a lot to take in. All of it, really." Allen responded, looking around the camp. "To think I was studying to be a doctor when I could've been here for so much longer."

"Ah yes. Well, it's amazing that nothing out of the ordinary happened to you sooner. Soon your scent will be gone and monsters won't want much to do with, well, eating you. Your father has protected you." Chiron chuckled.

"Speaking of "father", who is he, any way?" Allen asked Chiron.

"Well, it could truly be any of them. You're an oddity when it comes to defining features, my boy." Chiron answered.

"Hopefully I can find out some day." Allen said, leaning back onto the wall.

Percy opened his eyes groggily, and looked around. He was no longer in a sleeping bag, now he was in a bed. In fact, it was a bed he remembered well.

"Don't t-tell me I've-" he looked at his body. So no. He hadn't magically turned back into a twelve year old.

But the feeling of deja vu was still there, as he lay in the bed. There was something in the way of the top of his right eye, and he didn't know what.

It definitely wasn't hair, his hair wasn't a ghost gray (for the most part).

He reached his hand up to touch it, his arm very weak and shaking as it rose, and noticed it was bandages. "Ah, what the Hades." He groaned.

The door to the big house burst open.

"And you're positive you didn't accidentally kill him, Thalia?" Came a muffled voice from the entrance.

"He's not dead, Will." Another voice responded, Percy recognized it as Nico.

"There's a 50/50 he's drooling peacefully on the floor or in the middle of a violent nightmare." Thalia said as footsteps got closer.

Percy's head had been pounding for the last few minutes since he woke up, but now it started using his skull as a gong.

"You're awake, finally!" Thalia yelled with happiness and gave Percy a quick hug.

"Good to see your not-deadness has remained the same." Will grinned from across the room.

"Awake "finally"? How l-how long was I out for, Th-thals?" Percy asked grimacing with pain from his headache.

"Everything alright?" Will asked.

"Pou...nding headache." Percy responded.

Thalia was counting on her fingers, and looked up at Percy. "You remember being out for 9 days, right?"

"Uh... va-vaguely." Percy said.

"Well, you've been out for 2 and a half weeks since then. You definitely won't die of hypothermia, but the damage to your... important thinky parts might hurt a bit." Thalia said.

"Probably why he's stutteri-" Will clamped his hand over Nico's mouth.

Thalia offered a hand to Percy, and he looked at it for a minute. "Uh, well?" She waited.

"Why are you here?" Percy asked.

"Huh?"

"The hun-hunters, I mean." Percy corrected.

"Because we had to drag your sorry ass over." Thalia laughed, pulling Percy off the cot forcefully. "Still got problems with your memory?"

"I didn't t-tell you that pa..part." Percy raised his eyebrows.

"Lady Artemis told me, but I'm guessing that it's slightly better, then." Thalia replied.

"Y-Yeah." Percy looked down at the ground sadly.

"Oh. You remember that part?" Thalia asked comfortingly.

"Yeah... h-how's Paul?" Percy limped with Thalia's support out the Big House.

"Doing well, probably. Estelle as well." Thalia let go of Percy, and he sat down in a lawn chair right in front of the big house. "Convenient." Thalia laughed.

"What in Hades are th-they doing over there?" Percy asked, pointing towards the forge.

"Balancing knives on other knives. They've been doing it all night. Good practice for the new Apollo kid." Thalia answered, sitting in the grass next to him.

"Who's die-died so far?" Percy asked jokingly.

"They're following basic safety precautions and wearing helmets, so only 4." Thalia joked back.

They laughed for a bit, Percy grinning like an idiot.

Thalia got serious after a minute and nudged Percy's leg, getting his attention.

"Yeah?" He looked down at Thalia.

"Do you remember anything from your conversation with Lady Artemis?" She asked him.

"Everything up until t-the part where my b-brain stopped work-ing on m-me." Percy answered.

"Do you mind if I... finish what she wanted to tell you? It might... it might hurt. A lot." Thalia rubbed her hands together.

Percy looked almost frightened, but he wasn't exactly scared. "Al-ri-alright."

"Percy... Annabeth... well, you were, were clutching Annabeth. You were holding her... and she... she died of hypothermia when you started... to... to seize." Thalia choked.

Percy put his hand to his mouth and processed what he had heard.

He broke down, blaming it on himself, and weeping.

"It wasn't your fault. Percy listen, it wasn't your fault. You couldn't have done much, don't blame it on yourself." Thalia squeezed Percy's shoulder. "You've suffered severe head trauma, Perce. You need... you need to get some rest."

Percy nodded sorrowfully and stood up from the chair, and slowly slunk away to the Poseidon cabin.

"What's up with him?" A voice came from behind Thalia.

She spun around with anger, and stared the speaker in the eyes. It was the new son of Apollo.

He had thick black hair and almost a full beard, which was, like Chiron said, out of the ordinary for a child of Apollo.

"I'm sorry, did I say something wrong?" He asked kindly. "I truly didn't mean any disrespect."

Thalia sighed and turned back around. "He took a real hard hit to the head, and he's been in a coma for the past 20 days. I... probably shouldn't have said anything yet."

"They never really talk about how to deal with stuff like that in med school." Allen said, watching Percy.

Thalia looked over her shoulder at him. "You went to med school?"

He chuckled. "Only a semester's worth. Wouldn't really be here if that wasn't the case. Apparently monsters enjoy the smell of burnt baked potatoes."

Thalia snorted. "Who doesn't?" She said sarcastically.

Nico popped out the door of the big house and waved his hand.

"Where in the world did Percy go? Will and I head to a different room for five minutes and he's already gone again!" He shouted with frustration.

"Nico, you were just watching him walk into his cabin." Will squeezed the bridge of his nose.

Nico turned around and shut the door.

"Well, I've got places to be." Thalia stretched her arms and walked off.

"Uh... alright." Allen responded, shifting his feet. "So uh... who is he anyway?"

Thalia stopped in her tracks. "The Hero of Olympus, Perseus Jackson. He's uh... one of the greatest people I know."

"Wow..." Allen shuffled a bit more. "I'd like to speak to him soon." Allen raised his eyebrows at his own sentence. That came out odd. He thought to himself.

"Y...eah." Thalia mumbled, walking away.

Percy stumbled out of the cabin groggily, grunting as he stepped into the dirt. He dragged himself to the mess hall, shakily rubbing his eyes.

He sat down alone at his table like he always did.

"P-pancakes." Percy mumbled.

Pancakes plopped down onto his plate out of thin air.

"Blue pa-pancakes." He corrected.

He ate his breakfast in silence, then stood up and walked, more like limped off, towards the shore.


End file.
